


The Dog is mightier than the Tree

by strawbeehouse



Series: Liam Has a Time [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Attempted Suicide, Gen, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 18:15:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17854664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawbeehouse/pseuds/strawbeehouse
Summary: My character Liam has had enough of everything. He was ready, even if no one around him was.





	The Dog is mightier than the Tree

**Author's Note:**

> TW: suicide; suicide attempt; hospitals

Liam sat at his desk, writing something in blue ink. Thoughts had stopped an hour or so prior, and his impulses had taken over. The day’s events slowly seeped their way into his head, but it didn’t matter. Almost two years had passed since he was diagnosed with bipolar I, but it didn’t matter. Every day since had been a swift and ugly reminder of his faulty mind, but it wouldn’t matter. 

His mind filled with static. The medicine didn’t help him anymore. All it did was keep him in a constant cycle. Wake up and feel nothing, go to school and feel nothing, come home and feel nothing. No one could help. Jeremy, his parents, the teachers, no one. Not anymore.

Getting up from his desk turned him on autopilot. His heartbeat jumped up, but he felt nothing. He stooped down, grabbing a rope he spent a solid week practicing on before settling on the one perfect thing he’s ever made. Liam stood back up, his blood cold, and took one final look at the clock in his room. 12:51 AM. No one was awake. Perfect. He exited his room, leaving his door open.

As Liam snuck through his home, a small pitter-patter could be heard behind him. He didn’t notice, though. His mind was too preoccupied with the vast nothingness he grew all-too familiar with. 

He stepped outside, careful to close the door behind him. Whatever the pitter-patter was stopped in that moment. Liam climbed the tree in his backyard. 

Scritch-scratch

He tied the rope around one of the branches. 

Scritch-scratch

 

He wrapped the noose around his neck. 

Scritch scritch scrATCH SCRATCH 

And

 

 

 

 

Liam’s mom woke up to the sound of their dog scratching and whimpering at the back door. She stomped over to the door to let her out, annoyed that her sleep was interrupted after an all-too long day at work. She sighed and opened the door. 

The scream that erupted woke the neighbors, and caused Liam to lose his balance and fall. His mom, her fatigue having bolted in light of her horror, ran over to her son. He lay frozen on the ground. The branch he tried to hang himself on snapped off the tree, sending him plummeting to the ground. She removed the noose from his neck and cradled her boy in her arms, the rising and falling of his chest staggered. He was alive. 

Two weeks passed, and Liam returned to school. The silence around him was deafening. Not even whispers were audible. Jeremy, upon seeing him, hugged him as tightly as humanly possible. Liam winced. Classes progressed as normal, but the silence continued. Two weeks out of school, in a hospital of both kinds, forced to take his medicine every day and hear that he shouldn’t have tried to do what he almost did. That the note he wrote describing his failings was a result of his not taking his medicine for three weeks. He shouldn’t hurt himself. He was loved. He didn’t feel it. Even after it was all over, he didn’t feel it. 

He remembered his chemistry class, where it all began. 

Then, he remembered Jeremy. He was there for him when no one else was. Through breakdowns and hardships, he provided a guiding way out. It was going to be ok. He could live. 

If not for himself, then for his friend.


End file.
